My Sister Stole My Second Life novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Choosing
Reborn on adoption day, Dena runs to the poor Purdys to steal Maisie's old life; Maisie chooses the rich Stanhopes and refuses their money, and Thatcher shows her the note her sister slipped him.
The last thing I remembered was my sister's face behind a windshield.
The next thing I saw was the water stain on the orphanage ceiling.
I knew that stain.
It was shaped like a rabbit with one ear.
I had stared at it every night from nine to seventeen.
I sat up so fast the cot springs screamed.
My hands were small and chapped.
No wedding ring.
No road grit in my palms.
Across the room, Dena was already sitting up in her own cot.
My twin.
She was staring at her hands too.
Then she looked at me, and I watched her understand.
She remembered.
She remembered all of it.
Three days after my wedding, she had run me down with her car on a Tuesday morning, outside the bakery on our corner.
Now we were seventeen again, in matching state-issue T-shirts, and the date on the wall calendar said June 30.
Adoption day.
Dena smiled at me.
Then she got up, brushed her hair a hundred strokes, and went downstairs without a word.
In our first life, she had begged to be chosen by the Stanhopes.
They were the rich family.
Old Providence money, a brick house on the East Side, a foundation with their name on it.
Dena had pictured herself as an heiress by Christmas.
I had gone home with the Purdys instead.
A maintenance man and a cleaning woman from Pawtucket.
I put myself through college on scholarships and night shifts.
I married Thatcher Stanhope at twenty-four.
He was the only son, and he had never been able to stand my sister.
I pulled on my one good cardigan and went down to the director's office.
Both families were already there.
Lyle and Doreen Purdy sat near the door in their careful clothes.
His collar was pressed flat. Her cuffs were worn white at the edges.
Their hands were rough and red in their laps.
Across the room, Mr. Stanhope wore a gray suit that probably cost more than the Purdys' car.
Anne Stanhope sat beside him with her ankles crossed and her pearls straight.
Thatcher stood at the window with his back half turned.
Twenty years old, already taller than his father, already bored.
He didn't look at either of us.
The director cleared her throat.
"Girls, I'd like you to meet..."
Dena didn't let her finish.
She crossed the room and threw herself into Doreen Purdy's arms.
"Mom," she said into the worn cardigan. "Please take me home. I want to be your daughter."
Doreen froze.
Then her arms came up around my sister, slow and stunned.
Lyle laughed and patted Dena's back.
"Well, look at that," he said. "She picked us."
The director blinked. "Dena, are you sure?"
"I've never been surer of anything."
Dena looked at me over Doreen's shoulder.
Her eyes were shining with triumph.
I knew exactly what she was thinking.
She had taken the Purdys first, so I was stuck with the Stanhopes.
She thought she was taking my poverty, my hard work and my love story, in that order.
She thought she was leaving me her nightmare.
Anne Stanhope turned to me with a polite, tired face.
"And you?"
I looked at my sister one more time.
"I'll go with the Stanhopes."
Thatcher finally turned his head.
His eyes stayed on me for a moment.
There was nothing kind in them.
I didn't care.
I had already seen that face at its gentlest.
I had died believing gentle meant safe.
Anne opened her handbag and took out a slim white card.
"This is yours. It's for clothes, books, whatever you need. We'll set up a college trust as well."
The director beamed.
Thatcher's mouth went flat.
I could hear him thinking it from across the room.
Here it comes.
"Thank you," I said. "Please keep it."
Anne's hand stayed in the air.
"I'm sorry?"
"I'll take a bed and a key. I'll pay for my own books. I'll pay for college the way I was always going to."
The director's smile slipped.
"Maisie, sweetheart, nobody is asking you to..."
"I know," I said. "I'm asking."
Anne looked at me for a long moment.
Then she put the card back in her bag and snapped it shut.
Something in her face had changed, but I couldn't tell what.
Thatcher looked back out the window.
We signed the papers.
Out in the parking lot, Dena let go of Doreen's arm and walked over to me.
She leaned in close enough that I could smell the orphanage soap on her.
"Big sister," she whispered. "This time I get to be the heroine."
Then she skipped back to the Purdys' rusted sedan and climbed in.
Lyle was already reaching under his seat.
I knew what he kept there.
Dena didn't.
The Stanhopes' driver held my door open.
Thatcher stood on the other side of the black car with his hands in his pockets.
"The Stanhopes will take care of you," he said. "Don't confuse that with being one."
He had said those exact words to Dena in our first life.
Thatcher hated anyone who came near his family for money.
Back then, so did I.
"Then we have something in common," I said, and got in.
Through the tinted glass I watched my sister laugh with the Purdys under the June sun.
She thought she had inherited my happy ending.
She had no idea what the first chapter cost.
The Stanhope house smelled of lemon oil and cut flowers.
Anne showed me a room at the top of the stairs with a window seat and a bed big enough for four of me.
"Dinner is at seven," she said. "You don't have to come down."
"I'll come down."
She nodded once and left.
I was standing at the window when the door opened again without a knock.
Thatcher leaned in the doorframe.
He held up a folded square of orphanage notepaper between two fingers.
"Your sister slipped me this while you were signing."
He tossed it onto my new bed.
I unfolded it.
The handwriting was round and careful, with a little heart over the i.
Be careful. My sister told me she's going to marry you for your money. I just thought somebody should warn you. D.
Thatcher watched my face.
"So," he said. "Was she lying?"
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